He had been called the pioneer of shark fishing, the last of the Great White Hunters and The Monster Man. You may have thought of him as “Quint,” the salty charter boat captain from the movie, “Jaws,” who was eventually bested by the biggest mechanical shark of all time. He still holds the world record for landing the largest fish of any type ever take with a rod and reel – a great white shark that tipped the scales at over 3,400 pounds. Through it all, he has easily been Long Island’s most famous, and most controversial, fisherman.
In July 1951, Frank Mundus moved his charter boat from Brielle, NJ, to Montauk Point, NY, and began fishing for shark – considered a “trash fish” at the time. Offshore fishing has never been the same. Single-handedly, he created an industry. Some have called it an atrocity. Others have admired him for his courage and innovation.
Over the years he’s been quoted, mis-quoted, respected and cursed at. It all depends on who you ask. He’s been called illiterate, yet he’s written a book. His pranks at Montauk are legendary, but when spoken to on a serious note he seemed to sail on an even keel. All along, he claimed to have had fun.
Frank Mundus passed away on September 10, at the age of 82, from complications of a heart attack he suffered after returning to his Hawaii home from a fishing trip in Montauk, NY. With his passing, one of the most interesting and entertaining fishing personalities of all time slips into the deep blue beyond.
Simply bring up the name Frank Mundus at your local watering hole or dockside gathering place and eyebrows are sure to rise. It seems every fisherman who's ever come in contact with this salty skipper has a different story to tell. Most are entertaining, some are downright funny, others are scary or even nasty. In reality, the majority are second-hand accounts and, much like the man himself, it's anyone's guess at to how much is fact and how much is legend.
Say what you will about his fishing techniques, brashness, and ability to spin a tale, this much is certain: It was Mundus at the helm of the Cricket II when the first rod and reel mako to top 1,000 lbs. was dragged back to port; it was Mundus at the helm as six more sharks of 1,000 lbs. or more visited the dock; and it was Mundus at the helm when the largest rod and reel shark of all time, a 3,400 lb. great white, was hoisted ashore for a visit to the taxidermist. Still, it is his alleged role as the model for Peter Benchley's character "Quint" in the book and movie, Jaws, for which he may be best known by the general public. Few recognize that, in his later years, Mundus was actually an advocate for shark conservation.
I was fortunate enough to interview Mundus several times over the years. I’ll try to post excerpts from some of those sessions over the next few days, so be sure to check back. The following is from an interview about what it takes to hook and land a monster shark. Mundus was just a few weeks shy of his 70th, birthday at the time, recently “retired” and living in Hawaii. I noted in my notes that he was still “as verbal and vibrant as ever.”
Frank Mundus: Monster Sharks 101
“Yea, it's me. Still here and still kicking. Only now I'm hip deep in pineapples instead of knee deep in sharks. Currently, I'm not doing much fishing at all but there's a guy gonna take the Cricket II from North Carolina to Australia for a few months in the hopes of setting up some charters for great whites. I'll probably go along and check things out for a while, then head on back here to my farm.
"Anyway, as to catching monster sharks, it's the same wherever you go - especially with makos and great whites. While most anglers are busy worrying about what tackle they need to catch these monsters, they'd be better-off watching the sharks and learning a little bit about their habits. I mean, there are some sharks that are hungry and ready to eat and others that you need to make hungry. If you can't tell the difference, chances are you're not going to hook up.
"Take that giant mako you see swimming or gliding out in your slick. Fishermen all the time complain that they see big sharks but can't get them to bite. You've got to know right off the bat that this fish isn't hungry if you're going to have a chance to make him want to eat. Your first tip-off sometimes comes when the fish is still way out from the boat. You see a big mako or great white swim though a school of birds sitting on the water and they don't get up and fly away, that's a fish gonna be hard to catch. You see, the birds know he isn't hungry. They can tell - just like an antelope in Africa can tell if a lion is ready to eat. If, on the other hand, all the birds get up and fly, than you've got a hungry customer on your hands.
"So, let's say you've got the swimmer or cruiser out in the slick, the big mako or great white that doesn't want to eat. You'll be able to tell this fish because he kind of glides, he doesn't look busy or overly interested. You'll notice his tail moves slowly from side to side as he swims in no apparent hurry. You've got to get a bait out to this fish fast because it may make only one pass and then disappear forever. In other words, you've only got a limited amount of time to interest this fish. To get this fish going, you've got to treat it like a kitten.
"Ever play with a kitten and a ball of yarn? The first time you toss the end of the string at the kitten, it gives you that 'so what?' look. The second time you toss the end of the string near it you can see a look of interest. Try it again and his muscles tighten. One more time and he'll pounce after it like there's no tomorrow. Now he's got to have it and you can make him pretty mad if you keep taking it away. That's what you've got to do with a shark that isn't hungry. You've got to tell him he can't have the bait. Toss the bait out to that fish and the second he looks at it, take it away. Now do it again. This time he'll swim in a circle and make a half-assed move at it. Take it away again and again. Pretty soon, he's madder than hell and he's just got to have it. Keep watching, you'll know when he's mad enough to take that bait for real. Believe it or not, this is what we had to do to entice that 3,400-lb. great white we caught. That fish had no need for our baits, he was putting bite marks the size of a peach basket in that floating whale carcass. What's he want with a little bait unless you make him mad?
"Now, did you know that there's a pecking order to big sharks? Sure is. I've seen it many a time but the best example was again with that giant great white. We had six huge sharks stacked up under that whale, you could see them on the graph, but we mostly saw them one at a time. They were stacked up like air planes in a holding pattern just waiting to land. They were big sharks, too. Frank Braddick, Jr., hooked a big tiger or something and lost it and we hooked and lost a monster that must have been about 2,000 lbs. before we tied into that giant.
"Anyway, these sharks, they had a real pecking order. Each fish was allowed by the other fish to come up to that whale and spend a half-hour by itself. If it stayed around the carcass too long, another shark would come up and physically push him away. It's interesting to note, too, that the pecking order doesn't have to be based on size. It's simply an order. This one goes, then that one, then the next. Exactly how the order is determined, first come first served, aggressiveness, I'm not sure. But I know it simply isn't based on size. Anyway, if you happen to be sitting over a pack of these monsters, you might not want to bait the first one you see. You might want to wait a bit because you never know how big is the next one. It also means you have a limited time to get the one you want or you have to wait until it has another turn - if it gets another turn.
"Here's another tip that will clue you in to the presence of a big great white or mako in the area: if the blue sharks are thick under your boat and they suddenly clear out, get ready. That big one may be only five or ten minutes away from showing in your slick. Set up your heavy tackle now, before you see him."
● Check back for advice from the late Frank Mundus on how to whip the the biggest sharks.